Tag Archives: middle-east

While so many are Egypt’s great events and so fraught is its deep-rooted history with memorable days, of all days and events, the 6th of October rises out so lofty as Egypt’s most unforgettable, most valuable and most influential. Thus, Egypt will continue to celebrate the anniversary of the 1973 glorious victory, through which the 1967 setback was rectified, the honor and dignity of the nation regained, and the Egyptian armed forces were crowned with laurel. On that glorious day, Egypt’s armed forces regained their pride and self-confidence, as they had successfully completed a stupendous military feat, consummated mission impossible, thus deterring forces of aggression. Putting an end to the state of no-war, no-peace, the Egyptian Army had obviously managed to change the whole situation in the Middle East. It had proved to the whole world that the Egyptians were able to achieve a daring military action, based on courageous decision, careful planning and preparation, and valiant performance. This, as a matter of fact, involved a strategic, preemptive strike, crowning the sacrifices of the Egyptian people and their Armed Forces with an eye-catching victory that will ever remain a source of pride for the coming generations. On that great day, the will for challenge triumphed and the Egyptian people engaged most successfully in a battle of life or death.

Victory leaders

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

On October 6, 1973, the Egyptian Armed Forces mounted a surprise attack against the Israeli army stationed in Sinai and the Golan Heights. As a result, Egypt regained full sovereignty over the Suez Canal and was able to recover part of Sinai. The October victory led to destroying the myth of Israel’s invincible army Preparations for the October victory began very early in 1968 with the war of attrition. After President Anwar al-Sadat assumed power in 1970 and Israel having rejected the Rogers Initiative, war was the only option to recover Sinai and Suez Canal. A surprise attack was carried on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. Intelligence Authorities in both countries relied on a plan to confuse the enemy.

At exactly 14:00 hours on October 6, 1973, 222 Egyptian fighters crossed the Suez Canal, undetected. Their target: radar stations, air defense batteries, fortified points on the Barlev line, oil refineries and ammunition depots. Meanwhile, Egyptian artillery across the Canal turned the front line into an inferno in what was a show of force not soon to be forgotten. 10,500 rockets were fired in the first 60 seconds at an average of 175 rockets/seconds. 1000 rubber boats crossed the Canal carrying 8000 soldiers who climbed the Barlev Line and stormed into enemy defenses.

The Egyptian Engineer Corps built the first bridge 6 hours after the war began. 8 hours later they cut a path into the Barlev Line, set up another 12 bridges and operated 30 ferries.

The success of the air strike, at the beginning of the war, made it possible for Egyptian soldiers to penetrate the Barlev Line in no more than six hours causing heavy losses among Israeli troops.

PRESIDENT HOSNI MUBARAK – COMMANDER OF THE AIR STRIKE

But had it not been for the air bridge of military equipment and supplies launched by the US on October 10, the Israeli Army would have been heavily defeated.

Golda Meir devastated by the news of the capture of Bar lev line by the Egyptian army

On October 22, 1973, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 338 calling on all parties to stop fighting, to cease all firing and terminate all military activity and begin negotiations aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.

BBC DOCUMENTARY,6TH OF OCTOBER WAR

Raising Egyptian flags on all homes windows

The war demonstrated that:
• The Egyptians could mount a military attack, based on a brave decision, well-planned and properly-prepared.
• The myth of the invincible Israeli Army could be destroyed.
• The policy of imposing a status quo was invalid.
• Arab national security was threatened, a feeling which brought all Arabs together.
• Sinai should be reconstructed, linked to the Nile Valley and turned into a strategic region shielding Egypt from the east.
The Egyptian people, however, were not entrapped into domestic conflicts rather they joined hands with the army sharing up their capabilities and placing the liberation of land on top of all priorities. Thus, the armed forces had managed to shatter down the myth of invincible power as well as the security doctrines based on that power. They further dismantled all barriers, blockade and lines earlier set up to prevent the people from liberating their land. This gave proof to everyone that military supremacy was not an exclusive monopoly of a specific party. It also proved that good Egyptian military planning, indomitable courage of Egyptian warriors, and their belief in the nobility of their goals, were stronger and bigger than any gaps in capability and sophistication in equipment and military plant.

The will of peoples is much stronger than forces of oppression and suppression no matter how great.

President Sadat
Immortal wordsfromvictoryspeech

Peace with Israel :

On 20 November 1977, Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel officially when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab–Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He said during his visit that he hopes “that we can keep the momentum in Geneva, and may God guide the steps of Premier Begin and Knesset, because there is a great need for hard and drastic decision

Moments where time stopped : Sadat arrival to Israel

The Peace treaty :

The Peace treaty was finally signed by Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the Camp David Accords (1978), a series of meetings between Egypt and Israel facilitated by US President Jimmy Carter. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the treaty. In his acceptance speech, Sadat referred to the long awaited peace desired by both Arabs and Israelis.

The assassination squad was led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli after a fatwā approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman.Islambouli was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed by firing squad in April 1982.

“Sokolov held another round of technical consultations with his counterpart… The meeting took place in a constructive atmosphere, the parties again discussed a step-by-step action plan for measures in the field of civil aviation,” the ministry said.

Sokolov said this week safety experts planned a visit to Egypt to inspect airport security in September.

Fathi announced during a visit to Moscow earlier in July that an investigation into Russia’s A321 passenger plane crash over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015 was entering final stages.

The plane, operated by the Russian air carrier Kogalymavia and carrying 224 people, was heading to St. Petersburg from the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh. Russia’s Investigative Committee has officially classified the plane crash as a terrorist attack.

Washington has asked Moscow not to conduct airstrikes against al-Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, for fear that members of the “moderate opposition” could also be hit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has reported.

“They [the US] are telling us not to hit it [al-Nusra Front], because there are also ‘normal’ opposition groups [on those territories],” Lavrov said in an interview with local Russian media that was published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.

The minister also stressed that “such opposition groups should leave terrorist positions,” adding that “we have long agreed on that.” Russia first set a deadline for the “moderate” opposition to leave territories occupied by al-Nusra Front extremists, but then agreed to give them more time to withdraw.

In the interview, Lavrov said that Russia believes that taking specific and more effective measures to fight the Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups should be the top priority for Russia and the US if the Syrian crisis is to be resolved.

“It is important to provide humanitarian access to the settlements blocked by one side or another, to secure the ceasefire and to prevent its violation, as well as to launch the political process… but, as important as these goals are, terrorism is our common threat, and there should be no doubt about that,” he said, adding that, in the meantime, al-Nusra Front has been attempting to merge with other armed opposition groups.

Lavrov also said that the political process in Syria is being held back by radical opposition groups that refuse to come to the negotiating table and set preconditions for peace talks. He added that it is important to set aside these demands and focus on the fight against terrorism.

The minister also emphasized that Russia and the US are involved in a close and intensive dialog on Syria that includes regular telephone calls between Lavrov and his US counterpart, John Kerry, and a video-conference channel set up between the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria located at the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia and the US base in the Jordanian capital of Amman, as well as a joint US-Russian center in Geneva.

Lavrov had held a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the initiative of the US side earlier the same day, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement

The two ministers discussed “the fight against ISIS and the need to urgently distance the moderate opposition from the Jabhat al-Nusra group, as well as efforts to cut off the flow of weapons and militants coming from abroad to beef up terrorist organizations,” the statement said.

In the meantime, Kerry, who is in Paris, told journalists that he had discussed the upsurge in violence in Syria during the phone call with Lavrov, explaining that the two had worked specifically on “ways to try to strengthen the enforcement and accountability for this cessation,” AP reported.

In the meantime, the US State Department said that Washington has asked Russia to be “more careful” in targeting its airstrikes against al-Nusra Front, as hitting civilians or opposition groups while attacking the jihadists could eventually give more support to the terrorist groups.

“[The US State] Secretary conveyed to Russia and the Assad regime that they need to carefully distinguish between these terrorist groups operating on the ground and those parties to the cessation of hostilities,” US State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said during a briefing on Friday, adding that the US agrees that IS and al-Nusra Front “pose a real threat to the security on the ground in Syria.”

In a new interview, linguist Noam Chomsky warns that US President Barack Obama’s military buildup in Eastern Europe is threatening to destabilize the region.

“He has been more reluctant to engage troops on the ground than some of his predecessors and advisers, and instead has rapidly escalated special operations and his global assassination (drone campaign), a moral disaster and arguably illegal as well,” Chomsky said during a recent interview with Truthout, referring to Obama’s foreign policy.

“On other fronts, it is a mixed story,” he adds. “Obama has continued to bar a nuclear weapons-free (technically, WMD-free) zone in the Middle East, evidently motivated by the need to protect Israeli nuclear weapons from scrutiny.”

“By so doing, he is endangering the Nonproliferation Treaty, the most important disarmament treaty, which is contingent on establishing such a zone.”

But the biggest problem may be Washington’s actions in Eastern Europe.

The United States has spearheaded NATO’s gradual buildup in Poland and the Baltic states, citing “Russian aggression.” Upcoming military drills have been criticized by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov.

“We are convinced that these exercises carry a serious destabilizing component,” he told reporters on Thursday. “Their main goal is to continue the aggravation of tensions along the Russian borders.”

Obama’s policy on nuclear weapons is also worrying to Chomsky.

“His trillion-dollar program for modernizing the nuclear weapons system is the opposite of what should be done,” he said.

While treaties forbid the United States from expanding its nuclear arsenal, the upgrades include improved targeting systems, as well as adjustable yields, which could, in theory, make the weapons easier to use.

“These and other moves amount to a mixed story, ranging from criminal to moderate improvement,” Chomsky said.

While a new President will take office after the November elections, the philosopher doesn’t have much hope that things will change.

“Financialization has of course exploded during the neoliberal period, and the general policies, pretty much global in character, are designed to enhance private and corporate power,” he said. “That sets off a vicious cycle in which concentration of wealth leads to concentration of political power, which in turn yields legislation and administrative practices that carry the process forward.”

The oil export alliance failed to reach an agreement to cap production on Thursday. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih again walked away from the table as the kingdom looks to consolidate market share.

The collapse in negotiations, along with a forward-looking refusal by the influential Saudi delegation to consider capping production, means a free-for-all fight for market share among the world’s oil producers that is all but certain to lead to collapsing oil prices.

Economic analysts have already raised the alarm that oil-export dependent countries like Venezuela, Algeria, and war-torn Libya, who lack access to global credit markets, will be unable to weather the storm, leading to humanitarian crises and widespread social strife.

Why is Saudi Arabia pushing for overproduction?

In February 2016, world oil prices cascaded to $27 per barrel, down from a July 2008 peak of $145 per barrel, as the Saudis ramped up oil production from a 2009 dip. In the midst of the 2008 market crash, Saudi’s top oil official, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, called for the kingdom to immediately increase oil production to 11.5 million barrels of oil per day, and then to 12.5 million barrels daily by the end of 2016.

Energy market analysts initially scoffed at the aggressive move to undercut world oil prices, noting that Saudi Arabia’s own budget is dependent on a $66.70 per barrel oil price, with oil-extraction prices much higher for other OPEC countries. Market watchers predicted that Saudi Arabia would eventually push the oil alliance to cap production so as to keep prices at economically sustainable levels.

Saudi Arabia instead sought to increase market share when competitor peers were at their most vulnerable. North American oil producers, unlike Saudi Arabia, are not state-sponsored enterprises propped up by government handouts during down markets. When these US and Canadian oil resource industries fell into bankruptcy they became ripe for capture by foreign investors.

Similarly, the kingdom looks to rebuff efforts by other OPEC members to expand oil market share. By pushing oil prices to their lowest level in years, the Saudis look to not only bankrupt Western oil companies, but also render insolvent entire oil producing states in order to snatch up foreign oil resources on the cheap.

Oil prices have recovered some in recent months, to $49 per barrel, due to oil disruptions in Canada after the Fort McMurray fire and oil extraction remaining offline in war-torn Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria.

Before Thursday’s OPEC meeting, Radio Sputnik sat down with Justin Dargin, Global Energy Scholar at the University of Oxford to discuss the fracturing of OPEC and the kingdom’s plans to corner oil energy markets.

Do OPEC member states face a fiscal crisis if an agreement is not reached?

“Yes, the breakeven oil price, which is the price that most OPEC member states need for their budgets to remain solvent, for most Gulf States, is between $80 and $100 per barrel, to maintain their budgetary outlays without having to go into some kind of major deficit,” said Dargin. “The price currently is not viable for the long term, but I believe there is this sentiment for the OPEC members that prices may rebound in the future.”

The analyst suggested that the market rebound over the past few months may be little more than an oasis for the smaller, fiscally-strapped OPEC member states, based primarily on seasonal demand changes, especially an increase in demand during the summer for air conditioning, travel, and leisure.

Dargin noted that he does not expect that market prices will recover in the near-term, citing a lack of structural changes in the market after prices collapsed to a low of $27 in February.

Can smaller OPEC member states survive these historically low prices?

“We can see already that in the case of Venezuela that they are not weathering it very well and they don’t have as much sway in OPEC as other members,” said Dargin. “It will be quite hard for Venezuela and the smaller producers to encourage or force Saudi Arabia to come to an agreement.”

“Many of these smaller oil producers like Venezuela and Algeria will not be able to weather the storm and it will be a very rough road ahead,” he said.

May 9, 2016. Russian President and Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin at a military parade to mark the 71st anniversary of Victory in the 1941-1945 WWII, on Moscow’s Red Square.

Vladimir Putin said Russia is all for creating a non-aligned system of international security to counter global terror. The president, speaking at the V-Day parade in Moscow, called on all nations to learn the lessons of WWII.

“Today our civilization has faced brutality and violence – terrorism has become a global threat,” the Russian president said, addressing the crowds on Moscow’s Red Square ahead of a parade dedicated to the 71st anniversary of victory in WWII. “We must defeat this evil, and Russia is open to join forces with all countries and is ready to work on the creation of a modern, non-aligned system of international security.”

According to the Russian leader, the lessons of the World War II showed that “double standards” and “short-sighted indulgence to those who are nurturing new criminal plans” are unacceptable.

“The lessons of history show that peace on our planet doesn’t establish itself, that you need to be on high alert,” he said.

The Great Patriotic War (the term used in Russia and former Soviet republics to describe the conflict on the Eastern Front from 1941-45) will always remain “an outstanding, sacred heroic deed of our people, a call to live according to conscience, to keep the height of the truth and justice, to transfer these values from generation to generation,” the president added.

“It was our servicemen who gave the Nazis and their accomplices full retaliation for millions of victims, for all the barbarities and excesses on our land.”

Putin added that Russian soldiers have proven that they are “worthy successors to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War who are defending the country’s interests with honor.”

“I’m sure the veterans today are proud of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren – they are not letting [the veterans] down and will always remember the great victory, the heroic deeds of the glorious generation of victors,” he said.

Seventy-one years ago, Nazi Germany was defeated. Almost 80 percent of the world’s population was caught up in the war, including all of the great powers, and a total of 55 million people were killed in the conflict.

The Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The following four years of fighting saw 27 million Soviet people killed.

In Europe, V-Day commemorations started on Sunday, as the Nazi Germany’s Instrument of Surrender came into force at 22:43 CET on May 8, 1945. In Moscow it was already 00:43, on May 9.

As Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced the start of the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has reported the anti-terror operation’s achievements to the Commander-in-Chief.

“Backed by our aviation, Syrian forces have freed 400 populated areas and over 10,000 square kilometers [3,860 square miles] of territories,” Shoigu said during a Kremlin meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Terrorists have been forced out from Latakia and Aleppo, and Palmyra has been “blocked,” the military official reported to Putin, saying that military actions to free the UNESCO heritage site from militants continue. Hama and Homs Provinces in central Syria have been largely mopped up, and Kuweires airbase that had been besieged by terrorists for over three years was retaken.

Saying that Russia’s Air Force in Syria has conducted more than 9,000 sorties starting from September 30, 2015, the Defense Minister added that for the first time massive strikes at a range over 1,500 kilometers [930 miles] with both air and ship-launched missiles have been conducted.

With Russia’s support from the air, the Syrian army managed to retake control of oil and gas fields near Palmyra.

Three large fields have already started functioning in normal mode, the minister added.

In all, 209 oil production facilities and almost 3,000 oil delivery vehicles have been destroyed by Russia’s airstrikes.

“As a result of airstrikes, terrorists’ resources’ provision has been largely cut,” Shoigu told Putin, saying that petroleum trade routes with Turkey, as well as main routes of weapons provisions to terrorists have been blocked